Ecuador's Indians Say They'll Seize Amazon To Protect It

Latin America & Caribbean - In Brief

December 14, 2004

QUITO, Ecuador -- Officials from Ecuador's main Amazon Indian movement said Monday that the group would take over environmentally fragile jungle terrain to prevent the spread of mining and oil operations. "We ratify a position of absolutely no oil and mining exploitation in the ancestral territories," Rafael Pandam, vice president of the Confederation of Amazon Nations of Ecuador, said. President Lucio Gutierrez's government has pushed for aggressive expansion of bids for oil exploration into Ecuador's southeast Amazon.